Gem: Team Jacob
Shape shifter. Shirt ripper. Shark rifter. To sum up – these attributes define Jacob Black (apart from that last one – it’s entirely made up), who has considerable advantage over Edward Cullen which blossoms from his rich native ancestry. The Cullen’s savage history evokes a line of predecessors whose time was spent in dusty coffins, chasing rats for sport and skulking around the planet in misery over their perpetual fate.
To put it bluntly: Jacob’s heritage is infinitely more impressive.
1.      An Honourable Native Upbringing
The Quileute Nation, home to Jacob and the rest of his pack, are native people who reside on an Indian reservation on Washington’s west coast. The panorama of vast ocean beating against the bluffs at La Push; the Quileute beach and township, is a homestead which positions Jacob as a far better candidate for the affections of Bella. What better a beginning in life could you summon compared to an oceanside dwelling surrounded by the warm nurture of your tribe?
The tribe instills in Jacob a fortitude of life lessons borne from skills and abilities honed over centuries, enabling them to repurpose land and materials as needed. Â Jacob is adaptable. His elders have passed down to him strong, good-hearted traits; protecting your community, beating shite out of withering vamps and that old favourite: not telling your girlfriend you are struggling with desire to drink her blood.
2.      Awesome Backstory With Slutty Undertones
Quileute legend speaks of a two-sided mythical entity called Dokibatt/K’wa’iti who transformed a wolf into the very first tribesman. The Twilight mythology embellishes this tale citing the first werewolf shifter of the tribe as a chief spirit warrior who turned to wolf form after his physical body was ravaged. He went on to sire many children and handed his genes down to four families within the tribe – which emerge with the onset of puberty.
So instead of acquiring a voice that sounds like he’d been kicked in the knackers, when Jacob was on the brink of manhood he was able to morph into a wolf. And as legend says, you’re also allowed to sleep around and it’s perfectly acceptable. You know how the old adage goes: a slutty wolf is a happy wolf.
3.      Vampires = Pillaging Europeans, Wolves = Rightful Natives
A fortuitous angle for Team Jacob’s precedence lies in the Quileute’s battle with the White Europeans which began in the 1770s. With their twinkly pearlescent skin, fancy clothes and insistence on nabbing what’s theirs without even asking, the White Europeans bare more than a passing similarity to…the sparkling, blood-guzzling Cullens! The Quileute hold reverence for the land and its people, which cannot be said for their opponents.
Whether Stephenie Meyer deliberately pursued this obvious comparison: the Quileute as representative of the true Natives and the Cullen clan as the imposing Europeans intent on pillaging – it nevertheless racks up more points for Team Jacob.
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